ABSTRACT

Theobald qualified for his role as butt of the early Dunciads by more than his textual scholarship, for though a lawyer by training, he worked as a professional writer; and Pope would repeatedly insist that the mark of a dunce was to neglect some lowlier – and implicitly more appropriate – occupation in the hope of making money by writing. In Vander Meulen’s words, ‘Theobald was the ideal centerpiece; he perfectly embodied the functions of farce-writing dramatist, occasional poet, periodical journalist, and pedantic editor and critic that Pope in his developing satire was identifying as generators of cultural degradation’ (Vander Meulen 1991: 13).